


Not to me. Not if its you.

by manmehakkaur



Series: Not to me. Not if its you. [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manmehakkaur/pseuds/manmehakkaur
Summary: Just a series of short drabbles of the moments I WISH had at some point taken place between Zuko and Katara.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is Zuko and Katara talking post the Southern Raiders episode. i just finished my first ever watch of atla and am absolutely bitter about these two not having ended up together.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? We have some long days ahead of us”

Katara sat on a large boulder overlooking the sea, at the very edge of the camp. After hours of tossing and turning in his bed, trying to let his mind to drift off into sleep, and failing, Zuko had ventured out of his tent, hoping for the fresh air to calm his racing mind enough for him to steal a few peaceful hours from the night, only to find Katara sitting by the edge, her back to him, prompting him to wonder aloud why she wasn’t asleep yet.

She gave him a brief look before turning to face the sea again. “I don’t know. I tried to its just…...been quite a day. I figured this was better than staring at the tent ceiling.” She gestured above them, drawing his attention to the spread of stars above their heads. It was a beautiful night; the breeze off the sea-shore gently playing with their hair and clothes, the moon bathing everything in the soft cadence of light.

“Why aren’t _you_ asleep?” She asked, without turning her head.

Zuko sighed. Most of the days he didn’t know. He counted those as his lucky days, because when the nightmares came, they were entirely too much for the simple answers he has seeked to divest from sleeplessness.

She took his sigh as a cue to make room on the boulder, and he moved, placing himself beside her on the cool rock.

“Too many thoughts.” He said.

She turned her head toward him, her eyes- at once level and rageful- bore into him and he hated it. When people looked at him they saw the crown prince, or the banished prince, or the failed and dishonorable son of the firelord. But Katara managed to see more; she had since the first they met in Ba Sing Se. When her hesitant fingers had approached the scar on his face and he had found, to his own surprise, that he hadn’t shirked away. It scared him, how bare she could make you feel.

“Zuko, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He noticed how tired she looked, how worn down. Her chin resting atop her knees, the corners of her mouth turned down in duress.

“After leaving your father’s palace, and- and your old life and coming here to help Aang and all of us, do you think- even having earned forgiveness for what you did- that you’re at peace?”

He considered this for a while; the silence between them expectant.

“ I won’t be at peace until my father is defeated” and it was a matter of some small pride to him how easily and truthfully those words came out. How much he meant that. But it wasn’t what she was looking to hear. So in the process of being held bare and baring, he chose to divulge some more.

“I mean, I am…..more content. I know that I’m doing the right thing. I know this is who I was always supposed to be. But….does it make sense for me to be anywhere near peace when I don’t know why my father always hated me, why Azula hates me, why I betrayed the love and trust of my uncle? What happened to my mother.” He didn’t know why he spoke out loud the last part. He tried not to think of it too much. To keep it in the back recesses of his mind till he could fulfill his actual duty. But the true knowledge of it was like a nail being hammered into his head at intervals.

Katara’s back straightened a bit, her expression softening into something like care.

“Zuko, I’m sorry but, didn’t your mother die?”

“I thought so too. But the firelord claims differently.” He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering his father’s underground chamber, the fire ricocheting off of the falls, his words and the absolute relish with which he had borne this information to Zuko.

“And you don’t think its because he’s trying to play with you? Just another way for him to torture you?”

“I think I know him too well to believe he could do that. He meant what he said.”

She opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it at the last moment, turning her attention to the soft sea waves again. Silence.

“Why do you ask, Katara?” It had perplexed him, and worried him. Peace, he imagined, came easy if one had been good and pure their whole life. From your own actions, he supposed, if not by those of others.

“Is this about you blood...bending that guy?”

He’d never seen anything like that before. A rare ability to master for a waterbender but it made sense. And it had made sense, at that moment, that Katara would want to unleash something like that on the person she thought had killed her mother. But looking back at it, he realised how drained she had looked afterwards, how empty. He understood that. Doing something because you thought it was the only way, only for it to leave you feeling like nothing.

“I thought” she began, her haze trained to something beyond the ground at their feet. “I thought coming to terms with the death of my mother would bring me peace. That forgiving that person, or not forgiving him, would mean that I would feel okay about everything. But thats not how it is. I am over it, sure. But that doesn’t make anything okay.”

“I know what you mean” and he did. He also understood that Katara wasn’t always the forever hopeful and perfect person she presented herself to be. She was at times, annoyingly close though.

“Katara, you confronting that person wasn’t about being suddenly okay with your mother’s death. It was about coping with it and learning to move on. It was needed. Just like me talking with my father before leaving wasn’t about seeking any clarification from him. He didn’t have the answers. I did. I moved on.”

“ Maybe we’ll get that someday.” She said “Peace.” The first vestiges of a dawn were slowly becoming visible on the horizon.

They rose to walk back to their tents, as Katara remarked “y’know I cannot believe how weird this is. Its one thing finally being friends with you, but I’m actually taking late night advice from _Zuko_.”

A felt his lips quirk up in a smile. “ Yeah well, don’t make a habit out of it. My life has been a series of questionable decisions.”

“Questionable?” She laughed, and he felt a strange lightness over take him.

“Fine, they were downright bad.”

“Good night Zuko” she said, a hint of a laugh still in her voice.

Back in his tent, he collapsed on his made up bed, sleep overtaking him instantaneously.


	2. Tarnished silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a moment between Zuko and Katara at Zuko's childhood home on Ember Island post the Gaang having seen that awful (wonderful) play

Katara found him rummaging through a dusty drawer in one of the bedrooms.

Zuko’s family home at Ember island wasn’t exactly modest, but it held a strange warmth to it. It looked lived in and disheveled; recounting countless summers of being chased around in, sand from the beach dragged in through pairs of urgent feet, small family relics tucked away in odd corners of the house. She was on her way to her room, tired after having to sit through that god awful play, when she passed zuko’s room and saw his bent form intent upon the contents of a drawer.

She chose to knock tentatively on the door.

“Hey.”

“Katara” he replied, looking up, “hey. Do you need anything?” In his hands he still held a small wooden figurine of a fire nation soldier and a crumpled up piece of paper. 

“I kind of was thinking  _ you _ might need something. Whatcha looking for?” He had made a mess about the floor around him, the objects of the drawer gracing his surroundings in a haphazard manner. 

“Nothing” he said, his eyes downcast, intent upon the little figurine. “Everything? I don’t know. You came upon my father’s portrait in one of the rooms and I was just reminded; we used to come here  _ every summer _ . There’s tons of little things in this house left virtually untouched since then. I was just looking through.”

He looked wistful, his hands holding on to the physical remnants of another life; a kid in the palaces of the fire nation. She found herself kneeling beside him and took the crumpled sheet of paper from his hands, smoothing it out on her thigh. She held it up to the faint light coming in through the window. 

“Are those…….fruit with feet?” She tilted her head, the better to make out the uneven shapes in front of her. 

“What no!” He gave her an exasperated look. “Those are dragons. See?” 

“They’re not very good dragons Zuko”

“I’d imagine, since that's, y’know, Azula’s drawing, and she was about 5 here.” 

There were some more of the drawings, dust ridden and withered, a tarnished silver handheld mirror, more wooden figurines, even a few strands of red silk ribbon. 

“This was mom’s” he held the silver mirror close to his face, inspecting the engravings on its handle. “She’d carry it with her whenever we went on a trip. I guess its here from the last time she visited Ember Island.”

“Its really pretty.” The light from the window reflected off of its surface, making quaint little shapes dance on the walls. She went to take the mirror from his hand, her fingers enclosing around his for a second, and heard a little intake of breath from Zuko, before she pulled it hastily toward her, the moment gone before it had even come to pass. 

“Listen." She had no idea what she was getting at. Maybe its because half her mind was still on her argument with Aang, or because she just wanted _something_ to take the focus away from what had just happened. Had something even happened or was this just the play putting weird ideas in her head?

"That play was…...horrible.” she continued. 

“Goes without saying.” He was starting to put some of the things back in the drawer.

“And I don’t know where they got it from, or if it was just some weird exaggeration, but I just want to clarify that there hasn’t been any….. _ feelings _ , like that from my side- “

He had realised what she was pointing back to and shook his head, making her halt midway. “Katara. You do NOT need to say that. Those plays have always been stupid. I don’t- yeah. So, don’t think on it too much.”

“ _ I’m _ not.”

“Then?” 

“I had a…. I had a fight with Aang.” Maybe she shouldn’t be talking about this with Zuko. Or anyone for that matter. But right then, as it came out of her, she could do little to make the flow of words stop.

“I think he was jealous that we were being alluded to, _ like that.  _ And then there was the fact that they kept referring to him as my brother…”

Zuko’s eyes had widened somewhat, his mouth parted halfway in surprise and confusion.

“You like Aang?” Always that voice, annoyingly monotonous, even of the expressions on his face betrayed otherwise. 

“I don’t know! That’s why we fought. I’m…...confused and really don’t even want to be thinking about that right now.”

“But Aang likes you.” It was not a question. 

“I think so.” And if he did? She did not think she had it within herself to return those feelings right away. He was a sweet boy, and maybe there had been times where she had felt that they were emotionally at the same place, but more often than not, she held him in the same affection as that for a friend. 

Zuko had diverted his attention back to his pile of objects with a strict nod of his head. “Then tell Aang he has nothing to worry about.”

“Right.” 

She watched him for a moment more, his shoulders slumped forwards as he worked to get rid of the mess, his brows furrowed in concentration, and got up to leave. 

She had reached the door when his voice called again, “Katara”

“Zuko?”

Without raising his head, “You’re making a habit out of it.” It was almost a jest.

“I know”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know they've mostly been talking but I just love it when characters talk


	3. Lets leave it

“Lets try that one again.” Katara’s hands rose, the clear water rising at her will to form a wall in front of her, and for one spectacular moment-pausing to reflect the light of the sun, looked fiendishly frail- before she slammed it against the rock jutting out from the opposite bank of the stream. 

The stream- which Katara had chanced upon an hour’s distance from the house- was their refuge for the day, and the others were laid out on the damp grass by its edge while Katara and Aang practiced water bending. 

“Okay. Here goes.” Aang concentrated hard for a moment before the water rose, the pale curtain cutting off Zuko’s view of Katara - her faint form only half visible beyond the water’s soft tresses- making him snap back to the sword on his lap and the whetstone in his palm. 

Zuko had been observing her command the water of the stream, paying some attention to her form and movement so as to arrive at what he needed to be doing right when he had to call upon lightening. Uncle Iroh  _ had _ said that he had mastered the bending of lightning by observing the ways of the water benders. But halfway through- the water a gurgling lull beneath their feet, her hands tracing slowly the carefully memorized movements needed to bend water, her hair swishing about her waist with every turn, their slow shift mimicking the lazy course of the stream- he had found himself entranced. She was graceful, her body responding to the  _ chi _ , almost dancing upon the water, the latter seemingly subservient to her moves. Fire, Zuko recalled, demanded to be tamed. It had not the freedom nor the calm of water, its movements sharp and sudden. It amused him, how deceptively calm water could appear, when he knew firsthand how dangerous a waterbender could be in battle.

Aang’s wall held only for a moment or so before it trembled, and collapsed back into the stream, dousing Suki and Sokka, who had been observing the other two, sitting with their feet half dangling in the water. 

Sokka spat out the water, his face arranged in an exasperated grimace, “hey, maybe find a different surface to redirect your little stream at? The lovers are trying to have a quiet moment.”

“Well maybe the ‘lovers’ can find a different spot to kill time at” chimed in Katara, twisting her hair to get rid of the water. Zuko trained his eyes back to the sword in his lap.

“And what? Give up front row seats on two of the best waterbenders in the world right now? I don’t think so.” Sokka said, putting his arm around Suki’s shoulders. 

“Best?” Aang had come to seat himself beside Toph. “I can’t even perform simple waterbending right now. I don’t know….”

“It’s probably just your nerves, Aang.” Said Toph. “And that’s understandable. You  _ do _ have to go up against the firelord in a matter of days- 

Not helping, Toph.” He seemed exhausted, his shoulders slumping forward in distress. 

“We have been practicing since this morning.” Katara moved out of the water, coming to kneel beside Aang. “Maybe take some time off. I  _ know _ you can do these moves, Aang. You’re just thinking too much right now. Rest and we can resume again after some time, alright?” 

“Maybe.” He still seemed troubled. “I think I’ll go for a walk. Try to clear my head a bit. Momo are you coming with me?” The lemur hopped down onto his shoulders from its perch atop the trees and together, they passed from their sight.

“Me and Sokka are going to the beach.” Suki said, rising and helping Sokka to his feet. “If anybody would like to join.”

“I think I’ll just be going back to the house, get some sleep.” Toph followed them out of the clearing, leaving Zuko and Katara sitting by the stream.

“Well?” Katara asked, breaking the momentary silence between them. “ Do you not have any plans to spend the, possibly, last leisurely hours we get before…...who knows how long?”

“Not a one.” Zuko replied, putting aside his sword and dumping the whetstone in a small pouch at his waist.

“What, no sweet island girl you want to take on a walk at the beach” she asked, taunting.

“Funny. I think I’ll pass though. It’s been-” He looked up from his hands, and his voice caught in his throat, the sound of whatever it was he was about to say drowned out by the image of Katara sitting with her feet dangling in the water, her hair thrown over her shoulder, catching the afternoon light of the sun, turning a faint red. 

She wasn’t doing a thing but sitting there, looking like she did, but he caught it anyways and made from it a memory, one that would belong only to him.

When he failed to speak for some time more, she raised her head, “Zuko?”

He found his voice again, shaking his head clear of unwanted thoughts that took him by surprise at inappropriate times. “Yes its……..there isn’t anything like that.” 

Katara now turned herself to face him, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Not even back in fire nation?” 

“There was someone back in fire nation.” It was with a sudden sadness that he remembered Mai. He had yet to thank her for saving their lives back at the Boiling Rock. But the thought of her, to his own surprise, did not bring with it any longing. “You know Mai? Always with Azula? Likes to throw knives?”

Katara’s expression took on a momentary shock. 

“ _ Her? _ Wow.” she said, before putting on a sly grin. “No offense, but she is too cool for you.”

He let out a small laugh, “I don’t disagree.”

“But I don’t think we’re a thing anymore. Its…...complicated.”

“Well, I can understand that.” She passed him a sympathetic smile and felt himself smile in response. Their eyes held one another a moment longer than should have been entirely acceptable, so he forced himself to look away, focusing instead on the trees, their leaves getting ever so slightly ruffled by the breeze brought in from the sea.  _ Aang likes her. She probably likes him too. But Aang likes her. He likes her.  _

“Uhh, Katara?” He asked, desperate to change the subject. 

“Zuko?” She said, her gaze back toward the stream.

“I needed a favour?” he took a pause to see if she would respond, but then continued. 

“I was actually learning how to bend lightning from my Uncle before I returned to the fire nation. He said he had mastered it by observing the ways of the waterbenders, and he taught me all he could but I don’t think I’ve been too successful at it. I was hoping maybe…..”

She waited for him to finish, although he suspected she already knew how he needed her help.

“Have you ever done it before?” 

“Once, against my father. But I have little recollection of how I was able to do it right then.”

She considered this for a moment, and then stood up.

“Alright. Tell me. Tell me what you know.” And so he did. About how all the elements were more alike than they thought them to be, how it required for him to be absolutely calm and separate within himself the yin and the yang; the positive and the negative. She listened intently and waited until he was finished to remark about anything.

“It seems to me that you have trouble ridding yourself of emotion.” 

He looked away, and a brief nod was enough for her to continue.

“Why don’t we practice the move your uncle taught you. You can observe me do the same, see if there’s anything lacking physically in yours, and also try to achieve some calm. That’s what waterbending is, Zuko. It is complete attention: no anger, no passion or emotions. Try, will you.”

So for the next hour or so they practiced the move. Alternating between observing and being observed. There was a strange peace in working wordlessly beside her, in and of itself. 

_ No emotions _ . He tried to rid his mind of all the things that weighed most heavily on it. His family, his deeds, his choices. None of it mattered. Not right then. It didn’t matter. 

But he didn’t believe any of that, did he? What was he if not all the choices that had led him to where he was; practicing old magic with a girl he would have called his enemy not long ago. Even so, he tried, and tried again and yet again to call upon the energy within him and around to generate even a hint of lightning, but to no avail. Frustrated, he fell to the ground, utterly exhausted.

“Forget it” he muttered to the ground. “I don’t think I have the right set of mind to be doing this at all.”

“Were you expecting to get it right on the first few tries Zuko?” Katara had moved to lean herself against a rock, her brows furrowed in concern. “Because that’s not-

I wasn’t! I was …….  _ hoping _ at least to rid myself of my thoughts. Even if for a second. To stop thinking about all of everything for a moment.” He looked up at her, “How do you do that? How…….”

“You don’t. It isn’t about diminishing all emotions inside of you. It’s about not letting them overpower you.” She came to stand beside him and helped him to his feet, her hands cool to the touch. 

“Now, I’m no firebending master like you’re uncle, but I can tell you that you need to use the good inside of you  _ and _ the bad. Be at peace with all of yourself.”

She raised his right arm, and traced- without so much as touching him- the supposed path of the energy down its length. Her hand came to rest atop his heart, and her fingers splayed against his chest. Zuko nearly forgot how to breathe, and closed his eyes against the touch, hoping that Katara couldn’t tell the way his heart had threatened to escape his chest. 

“ Maybe this way,” she traced the energy away from his heart and out the other arm “you can truly find whatever you need inside yourself to bring out whatever it is you want on the outside.” 

She dropped her hands to her side, but didn’t move away. In the silence, he could hear her breath; ragged and uneven and undecided. 

_ This isn’t allowed. Do not sabotage this for yourself Zuko.  _

They were so close, he could make out the patterns in the iris of her eyes; he realised how startlingly blue they were. Or the way her damp hair curled at her temples. Or the fact that his fingers had come to touch lightly the skin at her inner wrist….

“You guys!”

They jumped away from one another hastily and noticed the small figure of Sokka by the edge of the clearing, waving his arms at them. 

“Aang’s back and we’re about to defeat him and Toph humiliatingly at Kuai ball! Come along!” and saying thus, he ran back to the beach.

Katara turned again to look at Zuko, her cheeks flushed from the heat, and began, “Zuko-

-no need, Katara.” This had to do without being talked about. In fact, he didn’t think it was possible to be so equally relieved and infuriated at something as he was at Sokka interrupting them. 

“We were just practicing.” 

“Right.”

They stood there, equally at a loss of words, before an eternity passed and Zuko got the courage to ask if they should join the others. 

“Sure” she turned to walk back out and waited a beat, before continuing on her way down the trail leading away from the stream.

Zuko made sure she was out of sight before he sat back down on one of the boulders, and pulled at the hair on either side of his head. 

“You idiot. You complete and utter fool.” 

There was no way he was letting whatever it was he was starting to feel for Katara to come between him and Aang. He had  _ earned _ Aang’s friendship, and he wouldn’t be able to bear his hate, no matter how justified. So he made the mental decision to stay away. He wasn’t risking getting so close to Katara ever again.

On the way back to the others, he allowed the sea breeze to wash away the last memory of her touch from his skin. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> There is a small Bellarke reference in this one for those of you reading this who like Zutara AND Bellarke :) Also, I may possibly be updating this series a LOT. like, I don't think I've ever written this much in one go. Hope anyone who reads this liked it!


End file.
